The Holt Herald: October 2014

...I never leave Your Hands.

On Sunday, August 31st, Jack and I got some exciting news that we were just bursting to tell everyone about.

We were so excited!

One of my friends had a dream that I told her I was pregnant on Labor Day weekend. The plan was to test on Monday, Labor Day, but I couldn't resist and did so as soon as I woke up on Sunday. Full of nervous anticipation, Jack and I cuddled for exactly four minutes and then went to look together. I was fully expecting it to be negative, since this was our first month trying and I know that it generally takes healthy couples around four months to get pregnant. Jack and I headed into the bathroom where the test rested on the counter, and we both looked down at the same time...there were TWO little pink lines. We both instantly turned toward each other and literally gasped at the same time. Then I jumped into his arms and we celebrated. We were having a baby! In fact, the little baby was already with us, growing rapidly inside of me! It was just miraculous.

Our baby's due date, I realized quickly, was May 13th. The birthday of my little cousin Abby, who died when she was 5 and I was 10. And my friend's dream? Prophetic. This baby was meant to be.

We wanted so badly to tell our families, but we decided to wait until the next Sunday, which was Grandparents Day. I made mugs for my mom and Jack's parents that said: "The World's Best Grandma: Expected May 2015" and "#1 Grandpa: Expected May 2015." Finally Sunday rolled around we called my mom over Facetime. We tried to have a normal conversation first, but my mom called me out: "You look like the cat's got your tongue- what do you have to say?" So then Jack and I went right into our little scheme, which involved us asking her what she was doing for the big day and what she wanted for her present, building it all up to telling her: "It's Grandparent's Day!" It took her a couple seconds but then she realized we were having a baby and she started screaming and running around. It was the best. We told all of our siblings and then finally told Jack's parents that night, since they had been apart all day. They were on a little date and were already drinking wine, so they could celebrate. After our family knew, we texted our best friends with this picture:

Thanks to charting, I found out I was pregnant only 10 days (give or take 2) after the baby was conceived. I was just 3 weeks pregnant when we got the positive test. I wasn't going to have an intake appointment until 8 weeks, and that was just some preliminary bloodwork. I wouldn't be seen by a midwife until I was 12 weeks pregnant.

Because I am so involved with Catholic Women of the Chapel, I have a lot of friends who are very aware of their fertility and believe that life truly begins at conception. People do talk about miscarriages, about their lost children, and I have a very good friend here who had two stillborn babies and a miscarriage, and finally just gave birth to her second child. I was so afraid that I would lose this baby, the little child we already loved so much. My mom reassured me that I come from a fertile family. I mean, I have over 50 first cousins! After all, my mom had four of us and no miscarriages. So I told myself (and our little baby) that everything would be okay. Jack knew how afraid I was, so he would make the sign of the cross over my tummy to bless the baby every day. We also prayed together for the health and safety of our little baby nearly every night.

But everything was going well. I was absolutely exhausted and started taking naps- and I hate naps! We made it to 4 weeks, no issues. The day after we got the positive test, Jack and I went to Barnes and Nobles and bought a few pregnancy books. Once of them was a recipe book, and I started really paying attention to everything that I put in my body, trying to buy more organic fruits and veggies when I could. I even started using all natural sunscreen and lotions, so that no chemicals would find their way to the baby from my skin.

And then we made it to 5. Those first few weeks are the biggest chance for miscarriage, so I was starting to feel a lot more comfortable. Jack and I had talked about getting a companion for Molly for a while now, so we decided it was time. I didn't want to train a puppy with a newborn, so we knew it was best to do so now. We went to the humane society and came out with this little stinker. We named her Luna. She is some sort of terrier mix and will get to be around 20 pounds. She and Molly are already like sisters. They play together, sleep together. Luna follows Molly around everywhere. We just love her!

At 6 weeks, I traveled for Ariel's wedding and then Jack took the 6 week picture the Sunday that I got back. I wasn't having any morning sickness or anything, which I read was associated with higher rates of miscarriage, but a quarter of all pregnant women don't have morning sickness and go on to have healthy babies, so I tried not to worry. I was experiencing what it feels like to be a mother, worrying incessantly about your child, even when you have no control.

Once I hit 7 weeks, I was starting to feel really good. I had just one week left until my first appointment. Although I wouldn't see a doctor or anything, I knew that my bloodwork would show if anything was wrong and the feeling of helplessness would finally be replaced with some peace of mind. Jack and I are convinced that I already had a little baby bump at 7 weeks. My pants were already tight! I had to use a hair tie to wrap around my pants button and through the hole to be comfortable. The pressure of tight pants on my tummy was so uncomfortable! There was an enormous baby consignment sale that I went to with a friend this week. I bought a few maternity clothes for later on and couldn't resist some adorable gender neutral baby clothes. I even found the exact baby carrier I wanted, brand new, for less than half the retail price.

At 8 weeks, I was already nesting! We were going to have visitors for three weekends in a row in October, so I wanted to fix up the guest room, which would eventually become the nursery. I already had a plan for the nursery (neutrals with some vintagey blue-green accents), so I decided to recover an old pink chair that I used throughout college. It was a hand-me-down item from my aunt. The animals had chewed up the outside of it and it was pretty beaten up. I found some tutorials online using painters drop cloth. I bought some drop cloth at home depot and worked on it for about two days. It's not perfect, but here it is:

Finally, my appointment came on Friday. It was a group meeting, so I got to talk to some other pregnant mommas, and we filled out a questionnaire, got our vitals taken, and then our blood drawn. There were about 8 of us. I remember briefly thinking that maybe not all of us would continue to have healthy pregnancies, but I brushed that awful thought away. I expressed some of my concerns to the nurse about having no morning sickness, and she assured me that she had four healthy babies and no morning sickness for any of them. I had an ultrasound scheduled in two weeks. I just had to make it through the next two weeks, and then Jack and I would see our baby, heart beating on an ultrasound. My friend even assured me that day that if something was wrong with my bloodwork, they would have already called me. I finally felt some peace of mind.

The next morning, Jack was finishing up with staff duty, and I was doing things around the house. I had a dripping sensation and checked in the bathroom...it was light brown blood. I knew that brown spotting was normal, but it terrified me since I hadn't had any during the whole pregnancy. I asked my pregnant friend and she recommended Jack and I go up to a hospital on the northern end of town, where there would be less of a wait and I would get much better care. I called Jack and he rushed home. We decided to go to Saint Francis, the Catholic hospital, up by our old house. We prayed the rosary on the way to the hospital. A part of me was terrified that something was actually wrong, but I do think the other part of me was confident that everything would be okay.

They checked my vitals, took my blood, and did a pelvic exam. We had to wait for a long time for the results from the blood test. But my HCG levels were at 15,000 which was normal for 8 weeks. After the pelvic exam, the doctor said my cervix was closed and that it looked like old blood, which was also good. So Jack and I were feeling very relieved when we went up to the ultrasound. The ultrasound tech was a very nice lady. They didn't have a radiologist at the hospital so she was going to send all the pictures to a radiologist who would then tell us what it meant. During the ultrasound, I asked her if she could see the baby. I knew that the baby should be about the size of a raspberry and should be moving its little arms and legs on the ultrasound. She said, "It looks like you might be earlier than you thought." No, I thought, no. I can tell you within a period of days when this baby was conceived. I've had a positive pregnancy test for over five weeks now. You should be able to see our baby!

She said that she doesn't know how to interpret the ultrasound, that the whole process of figuring out what's going on is like building a house, and she's just the painter. That made Jack feel better but I had an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. I should have seen my baby then, and I didn't. I just knew.

We went back to the ER and waited for what seemed like forever. The ER doctor finally came in. He immediately started feeling my tummy and asked where it had hurt before. I told him that I think it just hurt because I had done some situps the day before and I was sore. He then started trying to tell us what he and the radiologist thought could be going on. The gestational sac appeared to be empty and was measuring 5 weeks, instead of 8. They thought they might be able to see a yolk sac in it but weren't sure. There was also a cyst on my left ovary, and they were worried that it could be ectopic. So either the baby was ectopic, earlier than we thought, or it had stopped developing weeks ago.

When the reality of what he was saying hit me, I burst into tears. I showed him my NFP chart, showed him the positive pregnancy test date, and he knew too that something was wrong. He really was a very nice doctor, and I could see that he felt terrible for us, and he told us how sorry he was and that an OBGYN was coming down to talk to us.

The OBGYN talked with us for a while, which was very nice of her considering that I wasn't even her patient. She told us it wasn't ectopic, that the cyst on the corpus luteum is expected and normal. She couldn't rule it out, but the fact that there was a gestational sac meant I would have had to have twins, and the misfortune to have one stop growing and the other be ectopic. She then prepped us for a miscarriage and even ordered nausea and pain medication for when it began. However, she did prescribe bloodwork for Monday at Fort Carson to see what my HCG levels were doing.

The chaplain came in and gave us a candle and a prayer card. He wasn't Catholic, and I desperately wanted to speak to a priest, so Jack and I stopped by the Catholic Center on our way home (which is open for confession all day every day), and we received a blessing from a priest there. I was so devastated, Jack and I both were. We were going to lose our baby. In a cruel trick of nature, the baby had stopped growing- possibly even right after implantation, and my body didn't know it.

We told our families and our close friends that had known. Jack told his boss. I cried off and on for hours, and even in the middle of the night into Jack's arms. I couldn't do anything, I was so overcome with grief. After losing my dad, I know that life isn't fair, I know that sometimes there are no reasons, I know that God usually doesn't keep the bad from happening to us, but just helps us through it... I knew all these things, but none of that could take away from the sorrow and grief that I was overcome with, knowing that I was going to lose my first baby. Knowing that there are thousands of unwanted children aborted every day in this country alone, yet here I am, praying for my little one with all my heart, wanting her so desperately, and I have to lose her.

After we went home, I was convinced that the miscarriage was already starting, because I was still having brown bleeding and I started cramping. However, it was fine the next morning. I realized the cramping was from all of the poking and prodding on my cervix due to the ultrasound and the pelvic exam.

We went to mass the next morning, and it was the Mass of Marriage and Family, which I didn't even know was a thing. I tried to hold it together, but ended up crying silently through most of the mass. When we were leaving, a deacon came up to me and asked if everything was okay- he had seen me crying during church. Of course, I burst into tears again and he took us into a private room and prayed with us. Then the priest came in and prayed a blessing over us. I realized how beautiful it was that we were able to turn to the church during tragedy.

Jack and I had talked about naming the baby before mass, so I prayed about it during church. I have a special devotion to St. Therese of Liseux. I thought about how St. Therese, known as The Little Flower, spends her time in heaven praying for those on earth, and how little and meek she was...her "little way" of getting to heaven. Jack and I had been calling the baby "the little bumblebee" and I thought how perfect it would be to name the baby Therese, that she could be our little flower in heaven, a little saint watching over us in heaven.

On Sunday night, I found a website about misdiagnosed miscarriages. Apparently having a tilted uterus can make it a lot harder to see clearly on an ultrasound. The ultrasound tech had told me my uterus was deviated to the right, and although I had emptied my bladder before the ultrasound, it was already filling up again, which she mentioned several times. I started to hope that maybe this was the case for us. Jack and I prayed that our baby would turn out to be healthy, that my HCG levels would double, and that we would see our baby on the next ultrasound.

On Monday morning, I woke up as early as Jack did. I knew that the lab on Fort Carson opened at 7am so I showed up at 6:40 and was second in line. The woman who took my blood recognized me from the Catholic Women's Lenten retreat, since I was the cantor for the retreat. I asked her to pray for me. Then I went to radiology and was able to reschedule my dating ultrasound appointment -the one two weeks away- for Wednesday. Then I went to the OBGYN clinic and got a same day appointment with triage.

I also wanted to see if my hCG levels had risen since Friday at the intake appointment, so I went down to records and got the results from my blood work. I couldn't believe it...they didn't even test my hCG levels! They only checked to see if I was pregnant. Checking hCG levels is the easiest way of seeing if a pregnancy is on track! If someone is 8 weeks and only had levels say at 500, then something would definitely be wrong. I just couldn't believe it. The blood work was basically checking to see if I had STDs, which I already knew I didn't have. Since they didn't check quantitative HCG, they most certainly didn't check progesterone levels, which is the hormone that supports the pregnancy. The blood test results were worthless to me.

After waiting a couple hours, I got into see the triage nurse, who happened to be the head nurse. She was very helpful and told me she would call me as soon as she got my hCG results. She was also going to correspond with the OB doctor from St. Francis and schedule some more blood work and a an appointment with an OB on Wednesday after my ultrasound. I went home, still grasping onto any hope that I had left. She called me a couple hours later with good news. My hCG levels went up to 17,000 in two days. It wasn't a huge amount, but the nurse said that since it was going up and I wasn't cramping or bleeding, we could still hope! Even my mom's sister, who is a doctor, said she was optimistic. I prayed that everything was fine with the baby, that it was just a fluke ultrasound.

That afternoon, however, I had some blood that was red. It was fresh. Jack was already home from work and I started crying, realizing that it was starting. Jack wanted to go to the ER. How could I have a miscarriage while my hCG levels were STILL going up? We were worried that it really was ectopic. We ended up spending all night at the ER at Fort Carson. It was a crazy night and I was not a priority. They took my blood and put in a saline lock and put us in the "fast track" waiting room for another four hours. A guy who worked in radiology came in to change the TV and I asked him if he did ultrasounds. He said no but that he would talk to someone for me. Hours later, we were still there, and he actually pulled us out of the waiting room and went to get a nurse who came and talked to us. She calmed me down and said she would help us get to a room. Finally, after waiting for almost five hours, they took us back. She came into check on us and we thanked her profusely. I waited another two hours to finally see the doctor. She reviewed the ultrasound and still didn't know what was happening. She did a pelvic exam and again everything was normal. She said the fresh blood could have been caused by a number of things. Since it had stopped, everything was fine. Jack and I were kind of annoyed that we spend seven hours there for something that took 10 minutes, but we relieved that everything was still okay.

I woke up the next morning to a text from my mom. She works at a hospital, and had to go see a radiologist for work. As she walked in, the radiologist was looking at an ultrasound and he actually described it to her...it was a woman in my EXACT situation, same number of weeks. My mom told him that I was going through the same thing...he said that sometimes a tilted uterus makes it hard to see what's going on. So I had some more hope.

My friend Emily and I had made plans on Tuesday so that they day would go by quickly. I was so anxious for my ultrasound and appointment on Wednesday. We ate lunch and then went to a pottery place to paint. I chose a cookie jar to use for dog biscuits and she painted a tile and a little bowl. had been having some light cramping but attributed it to the pelvic exam the night before. But then I went to the bathroom and there was some more red blood. We kept painting since there was nothing I could do- I just had to hold out till the ultrasound on Wednesday. But then the cramping started to get more intense. Nothing crazy, but definitely uncomfortable. We were painting for several hours, and I went to the bathroom again and this time there was a lot of blood. I finally said something to Emily, that we should probably finish up because I needed some tylenol.

I realized at this point the miscarriage was starting. After all the hope I had, we really were going to lose our baby. I was pretty calm though. We went to Walgreens and I got some tylenol. On the way back, the cramping started to get really intense. I texted Jack and he rushed home. As soon as I got inside, I was overcome with a need to go to the toilet, and all of the sudden blood started pouring out of me. It really happened so fast. Suddenly the cramps weren't just intense, but they were unbearable. I lost all sense of normalcy and started crying and yelling. The blood wouldn't stop coming.

I had been trying to call the OBGYN triage, but I quickly was in too much pain to do anything. I had already taken an extra strength tylenol, and Jack had given me percocet...but they did nothing for the pain! Jack tried to call the ER and the triage no one was answering even though it was still open. Finally my mom called- really, it was perfect timing- and Jack told her what was going on. She called her sister, my aunt who is a doctor, and she actually called me right away and told me I needed to go to the ER. I told her that I couldn't get up. She said I should call an ambulance. Finally I understood that I needed some medical attention and we made a plan of action.

Jack got everything that I needed for the hospital, and he got the car ready with towels and everything. He really was so wonderful during everything...he was my hero. I laid down in the backseat, in so much pain, I honestly can't even describe what it felt like. He rushed me to the hospital, which is really only a 2 minute drive. We walked into the ER, and I was still crying and doubled over in waves of pain. I learned after it all happened that I was actually having contractions. Everyone in the waiting room was staring at me, but I didn't even care.

They called me to the screening room really quickly. The nurse couldn't get my blood pressure because of the pain...I wasn't still enough. I remember having a huge wave of pain, and literally crumbling to the floor and writhing around. They took me back to a room right away. The pain was still getting worse. They tried to give me an IV but it took three tries and three nurses to get it done because I was so tense or something with the pain. I remember trying to get up to go to the bathroom, but the nurse told Jack I wasn't allowed since that's when I was losing the blood.

Finally the doctor came and ordered some medicine for me. The nurse said it would work right away and I would feel like nothing was happening by the time I went to the ultrasound. It definitely took the edge off the pain, but I was still crying out with pain during the contractions.

Jack wasn't allowed into the ultrasound, so a nurse that came in with me let me squeeze her hand because of how painful it was. The tech wasn't allowed to tell me anything, but they actually called the radiologist in to look at it, and I heard them talking about the baby! I asked if he could see the baby, and he said, yes, it's measuring 6 weeks, 3 days, no heartbeat. He said the baby is sitting very low in the uterus and that I was having a miscarriage, which I already knew. I asked if I could get a picture and the tech said that it's against protocol. I remember saying something like, "it's all we will have..." and the radiologist, God bless him, said that he didn't mind if we got a picture. So they printed one off for me. And now we have a picture that our little Therese actually existed. She stopped growing during the 6th week... so at one point she did have a little heartbeat. I prayed so hard that we would see our baby on the next ultrasound, and even though she had passed away weeks before, the Lord certainly answered our prayers. Our baby was miraculously there.

After the ultrasound was a pelvic exam with an OB doctor. There was already a nurse in there with him, and I recognized her as the nurse who had helped us get a room the night before. The doctor ended up pulling out what turned out to be the baby and the placenta. I asked him if it was the baby, and he was insistent that it wasn't. I expressed concerns about wanting to make sure we could get the baby back to bury, and after he left the nurse talked with us, asking what faith we were. She turned out to be Catholic and she brought the baby over to us (everything was wrapped up in a cloth so we really couldn't tell what it was), and she prayed with us. It was truly a blessing.

After the pelvic exam, I felt so much better. The cramping was very light in comparison. They admitted me to the hospital overnight to monitor me and they gave me cytotec, which induces miscarriage. They wanted to see if I would need surgery the next day. After taking the cytotec, my cramps got a little more intense, and I asked for the strong medicine again. I learned that it was called fentanyl. She injected it into my IV and I instantly became woozy and couldn't keep my eyes open. Jack and I had been watching Miss Congeniality and I said I wanted to watch it still, but I pretty much passed out right away. I woke up a few times throughout the night when I had to pass some more blood and when the nurse came in to check my vitals. The bleeding was much lighter by morning. I ended up having the ultrasound that I had scheduled before, and we had to wait to find out the results. Finally the nurse came in and said that everything had passed and that I could eat and drink. It had been over 24 hours that Emily and I had eaten at Panera. I was starving. The doctor came and that's when we knew for sure that I had passed the baby during the pelvic exam with the doctor.

We asked for the Catholic chaplain to come, Father Chris, whom I already knew. He is a young, dedicated priest, and he was so wonderful to us. He said there is a blessing after miscarriage in his Catholic prayer book, and he prayed that with us. It was a beautiful prayer. He also helped us to get our baby back from the hospital. Jack and I both didn't want her to be thrown in the trash or incinerated with someone's gallbladder. Even though she was little, she was our baby. We wanted her to be treated as the tiny, growing human person that she was. We decided that we will have a private funeral mass, with just us and the priest. We had to work with a funeral home, but they are doing a cremation for free. And her ashes will be inside of the locket that I carried on my bouquet during our wedding, the locket that had a picture of my dad in it. We aren't sure where we will bury her yet, but we plan to.

Coming back from the hospital was difficult. Although little Therese had already passed, I still went into the hospital full of her, full of what had been life, and I left...empty. So much of my being was aware of the baby within me, and focused on taking care of the baby within me, and now there is nothing. Now my pants fit again, and I can drink and paint furniture, and I have hidden away all of my pregnancy books and the pregnancy tests and the little baby shoes with the sign "Reserved May 2015" in the closet in what was supposed to be the nursery, but never will be one since we are moving in June. And every little baby I see on the street reminds me of the little one that I won't be holding in my arms in May.

I have had trouble eating and sleeping, and my sweet, wonderful husband has been cooking and cleaning. He has been such a terrific husband. He held me through all of the physical pain and he holds me during the tears. I couldn't be more blessed.

But this past week has been so lonely, so isolating. I know that miscarriage is common, but knowing that doesn't make the loss less real or less important. I decided to write about my miscarriage because it was a traumatic experience that I don't want to hide. And I don't want to feel like our baby, like little Therese Marie was some secret that we need to keep to ourselves. We want our future children to know that they have a sister in heaven praying for them. Even though I have no child to show for it, I am a mother, and Jack is a father. We looked forward to this baby for nearly seven weeks. That's not something to hide. We loved our baby so much, and I know that she truly WAS meant to be, regardless of how long she lived. And maybe someday this will make sense in the scheme our lives, but right now it is devastating. And I need to tell myself that that's okay.

Right now I am just trying to focus on the little things in life. We spontaneously went to the zoo yesterday and I finally made some dinner too. I am trying to appreciate things like how wonderful it is to cuddle with my husband, the warmth of the sun on my skin after a rainy day, or the beauty of this rainbow that we saw over the weekend:

Just like that, in three days, life went from one of the happiest times in our life to one of the saddest, most difficult times. But yes, this is life. We love and we lose, but I suppose that is what makes this life worth it in the end.

A blurry picture from the zoo yesterday. I didn't think I could love my husband more, but as life throws us more curveballs, I find that my love for him grows even deeper.

The Holt Herald

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Happy Times

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

When my heart is breaking...